Vestnik Kavkaza
At the end of last week the presidents of Russia and Egypt agreed to expand trade and economic cooperation between the two countries, in particular to increase the supply of Egyptian agricultural products to Russia by 30%. Vladimir Putin and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi agreed on the need to establish cooperation between Egypt and the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, and the introduction of a simplified regime for access of Egyptian products to the Russian market. During the negotiations the expansion of military-technical cooperation and collaboration in the energy sector were discussed as well.
After the summit many experts agreed that Egypt has come out of the zone of American influence, and this creates additional opportunities for Russia.
The head of Caucasus Department of the CIS Institute, military expert Vladimir Yevseyev, believes that "Egypt is a country to which the Arab world is largely oriented, so the way Russia will build its relations with Egypt will affect the improving the status of Russia not only in relation to North Africa, but also in the Middle East. This is what will allow Russia to have a serious impact on processes that develop in the greater region generally."
Yevseyev recalled that last autumn Egypt spoke out against the use of armed force against Syria, "No state could openly confront Saudi Arabia, but Egypt expressed its opinion that the use of armed force against Syria is counterproductive. And this view was supported by other Arab states. It is clear that Egypt has a certain attenuation factor - economic, maybe domestic policy. But Egypt is a basic state, with whose support we can in general greatly strengthen our position."
According to Yevseyev, the internal political situation in Egypt is now normal, "President al-Sisi and the people on whom he relies, have to some extent succeeded in stabilizing the situation. Even half a year ago, we still feared an explosion in Egypt. "And the development of relations with Egypt, according to experts, is principal for Russia. "If it were not for the impediments, not only Saudi Arabia and the United States, but also a number of other countries, then perhaps cooperation could develop quite well in the presence of financial capacity," the expert said.
In his opinion, Russia should pay special attention to cooperation with Egypt in the nuclear field: "As soon as the issue of financial security is resolved, I think that Russia will be able to log in to this part of the market as well. What's good about the nuclear field? This is very long-term cooperation, because the construction of a reactor usually takes several years. After construction it is always necessary to maintain the reactor. We are talking about the modernization of the reactor, extension of its service life, and conduction of joint research."
Yevseyev also called for the development of bilateral cooperation in the space sector and in the field of military-technical cooperation, but at the same time he forecasted that "there will be powerful opposition from various quarters, to weaken Russian-Egyptian relations in every possible way, because many people, especially in Washington, believe that the strengthening of Russian-Egyptian relations would almost mean the collapse of the development of US-Egyptian relations." Yevseyev considers the latter thesis to be an exaggeration.
